U.S. wins rare diplomatic battle in Latin America

Posted on Saturday, 06.08.13

The Oppenheimer Report
Andres Oppenheimer: U.S. wins rare diplomatic battle in Latin America
By Andres Oppenheimer
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com

Something very unusual happened at the 34-country Organization of
American States (OAS) annual foreign ministers' meeting last week: the
United States and Mexico won a diplomatic victory over authoritarian
populist governments that wanted a free hand to suppress human rights
monitors and critical media.

It's a rare occurrence, because Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and other
members of their radical-populist ALBA alliance — often backed by bigger
countries such as Brazil and Argentina — had been steadily winning
ground in recent years in their offensive to weaken OAS human rights and
freedom of the press monitoring groups.

But at the OAS annual meeting held Wednesday-Friday in Guatemala, an
ALBA-backed Ecuadorean motion to paralyze the OAS's Inter-American Human
Rights Commission was soundly defeated in a secret vote.

Ecuador's failed offensive against the seven-member Inter-American Human
Rights Commission — a semi-independent OAS agency that is highly
respected by independent human rights groups — was seeking to paralyze
it by electing three new members including an Ecuadorean official and
other pro-ALBA candidates.

The ALBA offensive was expected to win, in part thanks to the votes of
many Caribbean countries that receive generous oil subsidies from
Venezuela's Petrocaribe program.

Instead, the secret vote turned into a crushing defeat for the ALBA
alliance, and for Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, a recently
reelected autocrat who had embarked on a personal crusade against the
OAS rights commission.

Mexican jurist Jose Orozco, who heads the OAS commission and has a good
record in the defense of human rights, was easily reelected with 22 of
the OAS' 34 votes. U.S. candidate James Cavallaro, a Harvard and
Stanford University law professor who has been advising the Commission
for two decades, was elected with a surprising 20 vote majority.

Ecuador's candidate Erick Roberts Garcés, a Correa crony who has been
openly critical of the Commission, was not elected. Instead, the foreign
ministers picked a Brazilian candidate, who was elected with a
relatively small 18-vote majority.

"This was a great victory for the Commission as an institution, as well
as for the protection of human rights in the Americas," José Miguel
Vivanco, a top official of the Human Rights Watch advocacy group, told
me in a telephone interview from the meeting. "It was also a major
defeat for the ALBA countries, who were hoping to elect a member to
undermine the system from within."

Vivanco said that "it was very significant that the Mexican and U.S.
candidates, both of whom have excellent records in the defense of human
rights, were elected with more votes than any other candidate."

U.S. officials kept a low profile, trying not to portray this as a U.S.
victory, in line with the Obama administration's policy of not making
waves in order to prevent populist autocrats from stirring up
anti-American sentiment.

U.S. Ambassador to the OAS Carmen Lomellin told me after the voting that
"It was a very positive outcome, because member states still defend the
autonomy and independence of the Commission." She and other U.S.
officials attributed the victory of the Mexican and U.S. candidates
largely to their respective professional qualifications.

My opinion: It's too early to know whether this marks a turning point in
Latin America's diplomacy after more than a decade of steady erosion of
democracy, human rights and freedom of the press principles.

Only recently, many of the same countries that participated at the OAS
vote took the ridiculous step of electing the region's last military
dictator — Gen. Raúl Castro of Cuba — as president of the Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC.)

And most Latin American countries are still looking the other way at
Venezuela's failure to do a serious recount of its disputed April 14
presidential elections, an omission that may set a bad precedent for
future elections in the region.

But the defeat of ALBA's offensive against the OAS rights commission is
great news, because it is a politically neutral group that criticizes
human rights abuses and press censorship regardless of where they take
place.

It has been just as critical of U.S. rights violations at the Guantanamo
base, or against undocumented immigrants, as it is of human rights
abuses in Venezuela or Bolivia.

It would be great if, instead of defending the cause of human rights and
press freedoms timidly, through a secret vote, more countries would do
it openly and proudly. There have been too many setbacks in recent years
— both in Latin America and in the United States — to let fundamental
freedoms slip further.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/08/3439479/andres-oppenheimer-us-wins-rare.html